The recent ruling by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Apple back-taxes due to Ireland is being presented by this Fine Gael-led government (and by their Fianna Fáil allies) as an attack on Ireland’s sovereignty, on our right to set our own Corporate Tax rate particularly.

Last week we had the Apple-Tax ruling from Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition, in which she declared that because Apple and Ireland had an illegal sweetheart deal that amounted to state aid, the giant computer corporation now owed an estimated €13bn in back-taxes, plus interest (estimated at €6bn).